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street roots
June 8, 2012
Making change, every day
he Street Roots Summer Rally is
rocking and rolling and we need your
support now more than ever. The
rally is online at www.rally.streetroots.org,
or you can just
Google Street Roots
™"l™" "
Summer Rally. It’s a
T
Prioritizing housing locally
sends national messsage
ccording to the Western Regional Advocacy
Project, “The Obama administration’s 2013
budget request for public housing, Housing
Choice vouchers, and Section 8 project-based rental
assistance is $1.7 billion below 2012’s grossly
underfunded spending bill. The automatic cuts to
discretionary programs authorized by the Budget
Control Act beginning in January 2013 will tighten the
noose even more. Rising rents coupled with even
deeper cuts signal that the nation’s most affordable
__________________________
housing is in peril at a
time when millions of
Under this top-down
people can least afford
pressure, it's not a given
it.”
that local communities
Yes, the Obama
will prioritize housing. In
administration and
fact, in many
Congress have done
communities, housing and some good things on
homeless services are not
the homeless front,
prioritized at all.
specifically for
homeless veterans, but
when you take a global
outlook, nothing much has changed, except more cuts to
critical homeless and housing services.
Under this top-down pressure, it’s not a given that
local communities will prioritize housing. In fact, in
many communities, housing and homeless services are
not prioritized at all.
Yet, bouyed by a citywide, grassroots campaign, “I
Support the Portland Safety Net,” Portland has done
exactly that. It has preserved $4.8 million in one-time
funding for emergency shelter for people on the streets,
and short-term rent assistance to keep people from
falling through the cracks.
But the bigger news was one of process: The city has
— after years of putting its most vulnerable citizens at
the mercy discretionary and unstable one-time funding
practices — reclassified the safety net from being a
budgetary after-thought to an ongoing funding priority.
Kudos are in order.
Multnomah County should also be given props for
prioritizing the safety net. In many ways, the entire
county budget is a safety net. Finding the money to fund
critical projects related to homelessness and housing
isn’t easy. Many programs have seen cuts, but leaders at
the county continue to do their best to hold the line.
By prioritizing housing as a community, ultimately we
are prioritizing our public safety, schools, health and
equity. Yet gentrification remains a dragon at the gate.
Thousands of people continue to be priced out of the
city, out of their homes and on to the streets.
In order to stop the bleeding locally, we have to find a
long-term revenue stream for housing. There’s simply
no other choice. Having both the City of Portland and
Multnomah County rise to the occasion takes us one
step closer to that vision.
Concerning state and federal lawmakers: It feels like
there’s no end in sight. We hope that housing will be
prioritized, but have little faith that the reforms and
changes needed will patch the hole in the bucket before
more are lost. Until that day, we as a community must
carry on and do the best we can. We believe we live in a
city that can do just that.
A
1J E ( , J | ) B ' S
> s •'/
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach him a t israel@
streetroots.org
WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
Send letters to the
editor to the Street
Roots office, 211 NW
Davis St., Portland,
OR 97209, or by
e-mail to joanne®
streetroots.org.
S taff
Executive Director Israel Bayer
producing a newspaper and other media that are
Street Roots publishes every two weeks, launching
on Fridays, and is available exclusively through our
street vendors or by subscription. We are proud
members of the North American Street
Newspaper Association and the International
Network of Street Papers.
Street Roots
211 NW Davis St.
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-5657
503-227-3117
v.streetroots.org
www.streetroots.wordpress.com
israei@streetroots.org
Managing Editor Joanne Zuhl
joanne@streetroots.org
Operations Director Sarah Beecroft
Program Assistant Cole Merkel, Jesuit Volunteer
AmeriCorps Member
cole@streetroots.org
Grant Writer Sarah Cloud
Accountant Heather Stadick
Reporters Amanda Waldroupe, Jake Thomas,
Devan Schwartz, Robert Britt, Sue Zalokar
Photographers Leah Nash, Ken Hawkins, Kristina
Wright
great way for people
to participate and give
to the organization
this spring and help
B y Israel Bayer
us blast into summer.
We know that many
people support Street
Roots and vendors each week with a
purchase of the newspaper, but in order to
deliver to you a great publication we need
your support to help with the operations of
the organization.
Your support goes toward helping Street
Roots maintain a quality journalistic
platform that highlights the voices on the
streets and lets countless organizations
deliver their message and discuss important
issues with 15,000 readers every two
weeks.
In these hard times, free speech and real
dialogue take place through the media. Your
support means that 300 people
experiencing homelessness and poverty will
gain an income each year through the sales
of the newspaper. On its face, this may not
seem like much. In reality, it means
preventing and ending people’s
homelessness each day. It means offering
hope to individuals and families that have
literally nowhere else to turn.
Beyond the newspaper and vendor
program, we play a leading role on the
housing and homeless front in advocacy.
This spring alone, we have helped lead a
campaign (along with partners) to secure
$4.8 million for housing and homeless
services for the city of Portland. We also
published the region’s first homeless deaths
report with the intent to expand the report
next year and eventually offer the region a
strategy to help prevent homeless deaths in
the future.
Street Roots believes in solutions. We
believe that together we can change the way
people think about and take action on
poverty issues, from immigration and race
to foreclosures and alternative funding
streams for affordable housing. We are a
small and flexible organization that dreams
big, and works small to get the job done.
We need your support this summer to
stay that way! Please support us online at
the Street Roots Summer Rally, or by
sending a donation to 211 NW Davis,
Portland, OR. 97209. We guarantee your
support will create real change for
individuals and the community every single
day.
Nancy’s Letter
hate the things that happen in my life sometimes.
I
I go th ro u g h so m uch crap, whe ther if o m e or-it o jwat
shit that bad forces bring to my plate.
I hate it. I feel like I have to keep picking myself up, and
even at the end of the day, I clean and wipe the scratches
and scrapes that life brings to my path that the world gives
to me.
I feel like I have come this far and I have a place in this
crazy world that I need to fight for. Like everyone else, I
have dreams and hopes, but I ask myself what I truly believe
in and what it’s worth before I get my hands dirty.
Because of the mistakes that I have made in the past, I
have learned to try my best, not fall in the trap of misery
and dead ends.
I believe that we all have choices to make all the time.
They never stop. We can make the right choices and the bad
ones, but I personally learned to be a strong and
independent woman.
I have overcome poverty, an abusive family, domestic
violence, a drug addiction. And now at this point of my life,
all I can do is look forward and expand my path of
opportunities and open doors for myself that only I can.
I want to know that I have gotten to a better chapter in
my life with the struggles that only I know I have had to
deal with. I am a strong believer of things happen for a
reason.
I am more than happy to be in my skin even, though
sometimes I hate the things that happen to me, but only my
eyes and soul know the truth of my life and where I take it.
Board o f Directors
Bruce Anderson (Chairman), Michael Anderson (Vice-
chairman), Heather Stadick (Treasurer), Eddy Barbosa
(Secretary), Rich Rodgers, Brad Taylor, Leo Rhodes,
Ken Hawkins, Nora Coon, Darren Alexander
Volunteers
Mary Pack», Leo Rhodes, Jan Bayer, Eliese Baker,
Sue Zalokar, Michael Moore, Robert Britt, Cynthia
Kiehl, Hannah Schultz, Robyn W if e , Shannon
Lattin
our vendors, we receive additional support from
donations and in-kind contributions.
T il K f -Xi'i'Ki) S 'ÍX C K *
fcV
Street Roots Rose City Resource
Street Roots publishes the Rose City Resource, a
comprehensive booklet of services for people’
experiencing homelessness and poverty.
To inquire about getting an order of the Rose City
Resource for distribution, please write to
pdxrosecityresource@gmail.com. Resources are also
available online at www.rosecityresource.org
goes directly to the vendor
who sold you the paper
Vendor orientations are at 1 p.m. every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday at the Street Roots office.